Second in the series of interview transcripts from The Stone Roses: War and Peace biography is soul legend Geno Washington. A chance meeting with a young Ian Brown helped set Brown on the road to success.

“Look man, you ought to be a pop star, you ought to go into the pop business.”

In partnership with Roses’ biographer Simon Spence, we are proud to present a comprehensive series of interview transcripts from those closest to the band. The Stone Roses: War and Peace biography is based on 400 hours of interviews with over seventy of The Stone Roses’ closest associates, including six former band members.

More than 100 interviews went into the making of War and Peace. Often these interviews would run, when transcribed, to over 10,000 words. In the writing and editing process, many details, insights and whole episodes from these transcripts had to be axed to keep the narrative pace of the book moving. Here, is the opportunity to publish the basis of the book in its purest, simplest form: the full transcripts of the interviews – Simon Spence.

First in the series is Dave Roberts, A&R at FM Revolver. The FM Revolver record label released the early Roses’ single Sally Cinnamon. Later transcripts will feature Howard Jones, Pete Garner and Geno Washington amongst others.

Legendary music photographer Kevin Cummins shares anecdotes from his time photographing The Stone Roses at “Sonos presents… The Music, The Myths and The Mayhem.”

Having photographed everyone from The Happy Mondays to David Bowie, Duran Duran and of course, The Stone Roses, Cummins was once described by The Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley as “sometimes more important than the bands themselves.”

Interviewed by music journalist Lois Wilson (Mojo, Q, Kerrang! and NME), Kevin Cummins talked through the influential late 80s-to-early 90s scene. Starting from his time as a student blagging into gigs with nothing more than an empty camera case all the way to shooting Joy Division in the snow and capturing the iconic Stone Roses ‘splatter shot’ NME cover from 18 November 1989.

“We spent the morning turning the place into a polethene cube so when the band turned up and lay in place, Guitarist John Squire opened a gallon tin of paint and just threw it across them! I kept thinking, “god, this isn’t going to work at all, this is not what I thought it was going to be like! John continued to be build the paint up by throwing it across the band and then tipping it over his head and getting back into the shot so we built it up colour by colour. At the end of the shoot they needed to get showered but I had to break the news to them that there were no showers in the building so they put hand prints all down the stairwell of the building!”

For those who missed the event, here’s the video of Kevin Cummins talking through The Stone Roses iconic ‘splatter shot’.

Author and journalist, Simon Spence promotes the release of his new book, The Stone Roses: War and Peace at hmv’s Market Street store in Manchester on Friday 29th June.

Simon, who reviewed 1990’s Spike Island for Face magazine, will be at the store from 1.00 pm to meet fans and sign copies of the new book which is published through Penguin.

The Stone Roses: War and Peace is based on 400 hours of interviews with over seventy of The Stone Roses’ closest associates, including six former band members.

The book traces the band’s genesis, studded with violent gigs and abandoned recordings, and shaped by their infamous manager Gareth Evans. The Roses’ legendary gigs culminated in the era-defining Spike Island show in 1990, yet from this pinnacle the unravelling was spectacular.

With the band refusing to play in America, arrested for vandalizing a record company and dragged through the High Court, the epic recording of their dark second album is the stuff of legend.